Rensselaer Union, Volume 9, Number 35, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 May 1877 — Marveious Feats With the Bow and Arrow. [ARTICLE]

Marveious Feats With the Bow and Arrow.

A. mwrr time ago » correspondent of a Chicago paper, wiring from thi» city, gave an account of the wonderful archery of Otar fellow-townsman and poet, J. Maurice Thompson, Em.. which account socmed to me a piece of exaggeration. Having lived here serCnd . year*, and being tolerably well acquainted with Mr. Thompson aaa lawyer and author. 1 am always prepared to read the encomiums of the proa* upon hi* literary efforts without surprise; hot T confew I was not prepared to swallow flovtu all that the correspondent told about his “longbow’’ shooting, But. In order to satisfy myself as to the truth or falsity of his statements I called uport Mr. Thompson yesterday, at his law office. I found him and his brother William, his partner; busily engaged with aeyeral clients preparing causes for the Circuit Court, which will convene in a few days; but watching my opportunity I engaged the poet in conversation, into which I introduced the subjectof archery, when 1 found out that he was a perfect euthusiast on the subject. Hisknowledge of the bow-shooting of the ancients, as well as of the Indians of America and the bushmen of Africa, is truly astonishing. Ho stated that for several years he had made it his special study, and that by constant practice he had become an export; that he and his brother had hunted HuTi killed all kinds of game with the bow, from snowbirds to the lordly bison of Colorado, and that be had long since cast the rifle and shotgun aside as weapons requiring too little skill. standing against the wall in a corner of the office, I noticed a bow of beautiful workmanship, and hanging on a nail near by was a quiver filled with long, feathered, steel-pointed arrows; and, if a helmet and coat of mail had pnly hung somewhere near, I could easily have imagined that I was in the hall of some ancient Baron, instead of the office of a modem lawyer and poet. 1 And when I intimated a desire to witness his skill with his favorite weapon, he eagerly consented to gratify my desire, and, dismissing his clients with an imperious wave of his hand, he and his brother took down the bow and quiver of arrows, and together we left his office and went to his target-grounds, near his cottage residence in the suburb of our beautiful little city. I have since learned that he is so devoted to the science of archery that he ■yill leave books and clients at any lime to gratify hia numerous visitors with specimens of his wonderful skill. Arriving at the grounds, his brother placed a target about twelve inches in diameter at a distance of eighty paces, and they each shot six arrows at it. Five of the poet’s and four of his brother’s struck the bull's-eye. The arrows were sent with tremendous force—enough, I imagined, to have driven them clear through a full-grown buffalo. Then followed other astonishing feats. An old-faStiioned three-cent piece was placed against a tree at a distance of forty paces, and at the first shot the steel point of the poet’s arrow cut it in twain. Then a lead pencil—a Faber No. 2 —was stuck into the mound at thirty paces, and out of a dozen shots by the brothers, only one missed the pencil. I then took another pencil and sharpened the point as finely as I could and placed it at the same dis tance, with the pointed end for a target; and Maurice’s first'arrow struck and split the pencil from end to end. We then threw apples and oranges and oyster cans up in the air, and the brothers shot at them «n the wing. It was no trouble for either one to wing an oyster can, bat occasionally an apple or orange would get away. After spending half the day in this way I suggested that perhaps I had kept them long enough from tlieir legal business; but they insisted on remaining longer, declaring that the science of archery demanded that its devotees should never allow the ordinary duties of life to interfere with its progress. I finally left the poet and his brother, fully convinced that the correspondent alluded to didn’t tell half he might have told about oor Crawfordsviile archers.— Crawfordtville ( Ind.) Cot. Chicago InterOcean .